


I Can Hear You

by doctorcaslock



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, Radio, ghost - Freeform, its that headcanon where Cecil is a ghost and the radio station was torn down
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-26 15:05:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/967369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorcaslock/pseuds/doctorcaslock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos is relieved that he is able to work in a real laboratory with real scientists. Leaving his small home and family behind, he moves to a small Desert Town named Night Vale with his father's old radio. Everything starts out normal, until, for no reason, his radio cuts in and out of whatever station he is listening to.</p><p>His coworkers say that it is a town ghost that takes over the sound waves, but Carlos doesn't believe in ghosts- he is a scientist. But soon he hears this voice, and it begins talking about Carlos himself. Who is this voice that is speaking? What does he want? He says he is a radio host, but Carlos just cannot believe it. He does, however, begin to try to find out what is actually happening, whereas everyone else in this small strange town accept the voice as a form of evening entertainment.</p><p>Carlos finds out that the answer is much more complicated than the question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Can Hear You

"So... tell me again where you are going?"

Carlos grunted as he pushed the cover of his suitcase harder, trying to get all of his clothes and some miscellaneous equipment to squeeze together so that he can zipper it shut. "This small desert town-  _grunt_ \- Night Vale, I think it's called..."

Allie raised an eyebrow at her brother as he climbed onto his bed and sat on the suitcase. He bent and twisted his body around the suitcase as he zippered it shut. Once completely closed, he let out a victorious sigh and jumped off onto the floor. He ran his hand through his hair. As he does this, Allie smiles at him. "You should get a haircut before going, your hair is getting unruly again. Also, in the desert, it will get hot, and all that will stick to your neck- trust me, it is not a pleasant feeling," She finished, twirling her own long hair into a rope and tossing it once again behind her shoulder.

"Nah, I don't have time, and besides, I'm sure there will be a Super Cuts there or something." Carlos dragged his suitcase onto the floor with a heavy thud, and rolled it out into the entrance of their small house where the rest of his luggage sat waiting. Allie was following close behind him.

"We'll miss you, you know." She said, arms crossed around her waist.

Carlos rolled the suitcase next to the pile of luggage and turned to his sister. They smiled at each other and he held out his arms, and accepted her in an embrace. "It's only a year, Allie, and we can always Skype."

"Carlos!" He let his sister go and saw his small mother shuffling towards him from the kitchen. In her spanish accent, she cried, "Oh Carlos, are you leaving now? Oh, _Dio_ _mio,_ my baby boy finally moving out," tears started to build in her eyes, "What will we do without you running around?"

"Ma," Carlos laughed, "I haven't 'run around' here since I was ten. And don't worry about me, you and Allie can have my servings of food." He bent forward and hugged his mother. Her grip was snake like, and he can feel her shaking as she began to cry, yet he can only laugh some more. "Ma! It will be okay! I will call home when I get there." Reluctantly, his mother loosened her grip.

Outside, the waiting taxi honked its horn. Allie helped Carlos load the car, and 20 minutes later, Carlos looks at his family and his childhood home. "Goodbye, guys, I'll miss you," he said with a finality, and he ducks into the taxi. He looked behind him to see his mother and sister waving at him on the sidewalk. He waved back, and never took his eyes off of them until the taxi turned a corner.

Carlos took a deep breath as he got comfortable in the backseat of the taxi. Next stop is the airport, where he will be in the air for almost two hours before he reaches his destination: Night Vale.

* * *

The sun sets to the west as Carlos finally reaches his new home. It is small, like his childhood home, but that is just how he likes it. He landed at the Night Vale airport just an hour ago, and already he can tell that he will like it here. The people are friendly, and the laboratory that he will work in is just close enough to his house that a bikeride is just fine. He is too excited to be here to fall asleep just yet, so he takes his father's old radio out of one of the boxes and immediately plugs it in the kitchen. He turns on the local radio station, which blairs out today's hits, so that it echos through the house as he unpacks.

Carlos finds himself humming to 'Safe and Sound' by Capital Cities when all of a sudden the station goes fuzzy. He is in the living room in the front of the house, trying to decide where to put the sofa when this happens. He stands up straight and wipes the small amount of sweat forming on his brow. "That's odd," he says out loud. It is now dark, and Carlos estimates listening to the station without interruption for about two hours. For it to suddenly loose connection is weird to him.  _But then again_ he thinks to himself, as he walks into the kitchen,  _it is an old radio._  He bangs his fist on the top of the radio, and after a moment the station comes back clear as before, if not even clearer.

"I need to get a new radio." Carlos says, and adds that to a mental list of things he needs to buy. "Sorry dad," he adds, glancing up at the ceiling. He ruffles his hands through his hair once more as he makes his way back into the living room. Another hour and a half later Carlos is found passed out on his mattress in his new bedroom. The lights outside shine into his room, and above the stars twinkle like tiny burning balls of gas billions of miles away.

* * *

The next morning Carlos runs around the kitchen with excitement. Today he is going to meet his new team of scientists. He dances around his kitchen on his toes, listening to the morning radio show and pouring syrup on two waffles. He forgot all about the strange interruption of the radio last night, and it is not until he gets to the laboratory and meets his new coworkers until he remembers it.

"... I was listening to my ipod yesterday and Cecil came back. It was annoying- I was running and I was on a roll!" On of the scientists were saying as Carlos walked in. Three other scientists were laughing at her misfortune. "I swear, he disrupts me at the worst times, its like he knows what I am doing and it is his job to ruin everything!" Her complaining is light-hearted, and the others continue to giggle. Carlos' ears perk at this conversation.

"I'm sorry, what have you been saying?"

The scientists that Carlos will be working with for the next year are friendly locals who were excited for the new addition. They are running various tests that are as complicated and technical as Carlos had hoped for, and when they introduced each other, Carlos knew what these people would become close friends. The young woman who was telling the story was Emily, and she looked at Carlos with a surprised expression.

"Oh, Carlos! We never told you about Cecil!"

"Cecil?"

"Yea," one of the other scientists, Tim, said, "He's the town ghost."

At this Carlos could only laugh. "Town ghost?" he said in an unbelieving tone. "You, scientists, believe in ghosts?"

The four of them smiled at Carlos, but looked down in embarrassment  "Yea, but this is different," Emily said. "Cecil lives in the sound waves. He comes through the radio every couple of weeks."

"Radio?"

"Yea, He came on last night actually, but he wont come back for a while. He's usually never on two days in a row."

Carlos thinks about the sudden connection loss of his radio from the night before. Was that Cecil? "What does he say?"

"He has this radio show that he does," Rebecca, another scientist, explained. She fixed her glasses on her small nose as she continued. "He talks about the happenings in Night Vale, but weird things. Hooded Figures, flying lights; no one knows what he is talking about, but for the most part it's good entertainment after a long day." Tim tries to hold in a giggle behind her, and even she lets some laughter slip. "He talked of you last night Carlos."

"What?"

At this point all of the scientists burst out into laughter. Carlos clutched the clipboard he was holding closer to his chest. Emily was the fist to gather herself before saying, "What was it he said Becca? 'His perfect and beautiful hair cut?'" she doubled over in newfound laughter, and Carlos began to get annoyed. "You guys are crazy. There are no such thing as ghosts, and you're not fooling me with one who apparently talked about me."

He stormed out of the room, the laughter fading behind him. He spent the rest of the time setting up a seismometer of the town. He has always been fascinated with the tectonic movement of the earth, and despite the lack of tectonic boundaries anywhere near Night Vale, Carlos still likes to measure the movement beneath his feet. He turns on his small radio and keeps it on low volume, just for background noise, as he works. The music is clear behind him and he is just about finished when the radio begins to get fuzzy again. Carlos stares at the radio, remembering what the other said about this 'Cecil,' this town ghost that communicates through the radio. "It's not true though," Carlos says out loud, he goes to bang his fist on the radio again and the music returns.

Ten minutes later it happens again.

Carlos sighs in annoyance and bangs on the radio again, but this time the music doesn't return. He picks it up and shakes the small machine, and to his surprise he hears a voice within the white noise. He brings it to his ear and tries to make out what it is saying, but he cannot make out what is being said. He looks around the empty room, but no one is there with him, only he not-yet-completed seismometer  He shakes the radio again, and this time the white noise subsides, and instead of music, a smooth deep voice talks.

"...says the angels revealed themselves to her; said they were ten feet tall, radiant, and one of them was black; said they helped her with various household chores..." Carlos drops the radio out of surprise and backs away from the table it fell upon. He stares at the radio as the voice continues, "One of them changed a light bulb for her, the porch light. She’s offering to sell the old lightbulb, which has been touched by an angel..." Carlos feels his jaw drop. Is this Cecil? He shakes his head vigorously. No. Cecil is not real. None of this is real-

"A new man came into town today. Who is he? What does he want from us? Why his perfect and beautiful haircut? Why his perfect and beautiful coat? He says he is a scientist. Well, we have all been..."

"No-" Carlos says, as the deep voice continues describing the arrival of this new scientist. "They are playing a joke. Just a joke." Quickly, he unplugs the radio, which in turn quiets the radio host, and quickly gathers his things before leaving the lab without a word to the other scientists.

* * *

The next couple of weeks go by and Carlos is finding some strange occurrences the tiny town of Night Vale. His completed Seismic Monitor is up and running, ut it is also going crazy. He brings in the fourth scientist of his group, Erik, and shows him that, according to his monitor  "Night Vale should be going through a severe Earthquake right now," The two of them observe the machine, watching the needle jump up and down, creating violent zig zags on the slow moving paper.

"I don't know Carlos," Erik said, rubbing his beard, "You sure this is working correctly,?" He bends over the monitor, trying to find anything amiss.

"Of course its running correctly, if it weren't, I wouldn't have called you here to check on this- I would have fixed it myself!"

The two of them tried everything they could think of in trying to understand the monitor, but they eventually gave up on it. Carlos swears that there was nothing wrong with the machine, but Erik cannot believe that there are actual earthquakes occurring while no on can feel it. "Well, you believe in a radio ghost," Carlos jabbed with a smile. Erik only shook his head. "Whatever, man." Then he left Carlos to his works. Scratching his head, Carlos decides to move onto another one of his experiences. Lately he has given up on listening to the radio, despite having the need of background noise while he works. He still doesn't believe that Cecil is some dead spirit communicating through the radio, but he still feels uncomfortable having that risk of hearing it again.

* * *

The thunder rumbles outside as Carlos begins a new experiment. The rain acts as a good background noise, so the radio is left in the corner, unplugged. More days have passed, and thankfully, Carlos has not heard any of the ghostly voices from his radio. He still listens to it on a daily occasion, but whenever the machine is not in use, it is unplugged. Carlos still cannot fully believe in the town's ghost, but he can't be too sure.

Carlos carefully drops blue liquid into some purple liquid, and, drop by drop, it begins to turn a healthy brown. Happy with the result, Carlos grins and stands to take notes in his well used and loved notebook. He is writing down a formula when it happens.

"The desert seems vast, even endless, and yet scientists tell us that somewhere, even now, there is snow."

Carlos breaks his pencil out of shock and looks at the radio. The machine looks to be off, none of the lights are on to display the radio station or the time, yet the voice cracks through the speakers clear as crystal. The radio host continues to talk about a 'mysterious glow cloud' and Carlos' heartbeat is on overdrive.

"I'm sorry dad, but I can't take it," he stands from his table and walks across the room. He takes hold of the radio and turns to the nearest window. He is relieved for a moment, for when he opens the window, the loud rainfall almost blocks out the sound of Cecil's voice, but it is just not enough for Carlos. He brings back his arm to throw the radio into the rain. He thinks of his father. Way back when, his dad brought home a brand new radio. Carlos and his sister thought there was no reason to bring the radio into the house, for they had their television shows, but, as he went to bed, Carlos would always hear the loud monotonous tone of the radio being blared in the living room, and it would always be the last thing he would hear at night. After his father passed, Carlos would still hear the noises, though the radio fell into silence.

Now, he is going to throw it into the rain, letting the water seep into the wires, cutting off the mysterious broadcast for good.

"Can you believe this guy said he used Indian magics? What an asshole."

Carlos felt a tear crawl down his cheek, but catching this small statement from the radio made him cough out a small laugh. He brought the radio down in front of him, and looked at it in his hands. The label of the radio's maker was faded, and the dust in the grooves of the knobs and speakers made their permanent homes. Thinking about it, although there was no way Carlos could know where the voice was coming from, what he was saying was a little bit entertaining, if not, a little weird--

"Here’s something odd. There is a cat hovering in the men’s bathroom at the radio station here. He seems perfectly happy and healthy, but it’s floating about four feet off the ground next to the sink."

\--okay, a lot more strange. Still smiling, Carlos closes the window with one hand and returns the radio to its proper place, before plugging it back in and turning the volume a bit up. He continues with his work, listening to Cecil and his soothing voice. He listens to Cecil warning the citizens of Night Vale of a 3600 ton dragon running from the cops. He was informed of the glow cloud that moved over the town, dropping small animal carcasses, and was entertained when Cecil dropped into a trance, hailing this glow cloud and broadcasting the weather.

Carlos only begins to pack up his equipment when the glow cloud past, and as he flips off the light switch of his lab, he hears from the radio,

"Dear listeners, here is a list of things. Emotions you don’t understand upon viewing a sunset. Lost pets, found. Lost pets, unfound. A secret lost pet city on the moon. Trees that see. Restaurants that head. A void that thinks. A face half seen just before falling asleep. Trembling hands reaching for desperately needed items. Sandwiches. Silence when there should be noise. Noise when there should be silence. Nothing when you want something. Something when you thought there was nothing. Clear plastic binder sheets. Scented dryer sheets. Rain coming down in sheets. Night. Rest. Sleep. End.

Goodnight, listeners. Goodnight."

**Author's Note:**

> Wooo! my first Night Vale fic! If you guys liked it ill make a sequel of Carlos trying to find out who, or what exactly, is Cecil. c:


End file.
